


Do Your Worst

by MorganaNK



Category: Inspector Lynley - All Media Types, Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganaNK/pseuds/MorganaNK
Summary: A fic set after 'In The Blink Of An Eye'; Barbara's POV
Relationships: Barbara Havers/Thomas Lynley
Kudos: 13





	Do Your Worst

**Author's Note:**

> Property of Elizabeth George and the BBC, no copyright infringement intended

I wonder for what seems like the hundredth time if I have a target painted on my back, a target that only he can see, and hit the bullseye with a surgeon’s precision.

I never thought that I would let someone talk to me the way he does; continually lashing out at me with a tongue as sharp as a razor, delivering stinging barbs with maximum impact. The old me wouldn’t have taken this sort of abuse lying down. The old me had a reputation, and a well-deserved one at that. She snapped and snarled and bitched her way through SIO after SIO, leaving them verbally battered in her wake.

And then along came Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. The eighth bloody Earl of Asherton. An arrogant ponce who I despised with a passion for no reason other than he represented everything I hated about superior officers and the upper classes. Our first case was make or break for the both of us; but by the end of it we had reached an understanding. And as the years and cases passed, that understanding strengthened and grew into something much, much more.

I used to think I had cornered the market in dysfunctional families, but our friendship taught me to think differently. Someone that I would once have dismissed as being privileged and living in a gilded cage had been to hell and back, and then, just when things were beginning to look up for him, he watched his wife Helen die, helpless to do anything to stop it.

After her funeral he fell apart, drinking heavily instead of eating, spiraling deeper and deeper into depression. He shut himself away from his family and took to laying into me verbally every opportunity he got.

He is trying to drive me away too. 

I’m not going let that happen.

That’s why I’m letting him treat me as his personal punching bag; and whatever else he needs me to be. Taking everything he throws at me without flinching.

Thomas Lynley; do your worst because I’m not going anywhere.


End file.
